


Playing the One You're Dealt

by TakeTheShot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Spoilers, Basically set in my happy place, Boys In Love, But only the season two finale, Established Relationship, M/M, No angst here today, Phil's prosthetic hand has some neat tricks, Seriously bring your toothbrush, i just needed some happy, phlint - Freeform, total and utter Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-08 19:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15936461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TakeTheShot/pseuds/TakeTheShot
Summary: Phil Coulson can cope with anything but when he first lost his hand he had to admit he'd been somewhat worried about how his boyfriend would react. As usual, Clint had done nothing but surprise him.Tonight Phil is planning a surprise of his own.This one is a totally unrepentant fluff pile.





	Playing the One You're Dealt

**Author's Note:**

> I was in desperate need of some major fluff and this happened. I hope it makes you as warm and fuzzy as it did me!
> 
> Set in some nebulous, wonderful fandom future where Shield still exists, The Avengers never broke up and Clint and Phil own their own apartment. *sigh*
> 
> As always I adore comments and, if anyone can draw and feels inspired I would pretty much kill for a picture of Clint in his outfit... Enjoy x

>>===>>

Arriving at their apartment door, Phil reached for the handle, and froze. His right hand was full of bags, so he’d reached out with his left one, and seeing the prosthetic stopped him in his tracks. It honestly would have been indistinguishable from his own actual hand to most people, but Phil wasn’t most people. His belly swooped with pleasantly nervy butterflies. His hand. A lot hung on that hand this evening. A whole lot of a lot. 

When he’d first lost his real hand, Phil had largely taken it in his stride. There hadn’t been time to do much else and he was pretty much a master of playing the cards as they were dealt to him. But even he would have to admit that at first there had been an interval when he’d been worried about how Clint would react. Not to the fact that he’d had to lose the hand, because there really had been no other choice, but to the very fact of it being…lost. Gone. An ex-hand. To the fact that there was an empty void where the living, moving fingers that had so very often twined with Clint’s, picked up his discarded socks, stroked down his back in the middle of the night or worked diligently to open the myriad buckles of his tac suit should have been. Replaced by well-crafted but ultimately synthetic skin, flesh and bone exchanged with wires and plastic.

Not that he’d thought that Clint’s feelings were superficial enough to change because he wasn’t ‘whole’, because they weren’t. Or that he’d in any way tried to hide what had happened or what it had looked like, because he hadn’t. But there had been a long and complicated time after Mack’s axe had fallen, long days and weeks filled with chaos and inhumans and inhuman chaos which had meant Phil hadn’t been able to see Clint face-to-face and he’d been well aware that for some things the image on a video call just didn’t show the whole…reality. And no matter how good the prosthetic Fitz had built was, and it was excellent, the truth was still unrelentingly harsh. The hand was gone. 

Phil had fully expected there to be a…period of adjustment.

So when the scheduled jet had landed and Clint had walked into the base for the first time since the ‘incident’, Phil hadn’t been able to help the trepidation that had risen in his gut, tainting the sheer, blinding joy of seeing his partner again.

But Clint. Well. As usual Clint had exceeded absolutely all of Phil’s expectations.

He smiled at the memory.

>>===>>

_“Phil.” May’s hiss cut through the buzz in Phil’s head, “Phil, you’re fidgeting.”_

_Phil jumped, jerked out of his reverie. “I am not._

_“You are. Look.” May flicked her eyes away from critiquing the landing of the jet currently manoeuvring into what she regarded as her landing bay and down to Phil’s left hand. Phil followed her gaze and was startled to see his fingers curling and uncurling erratically, flexing with no conscious instructions from him. “Stop. You’ll make the newbies nervous.”_

_Sharply, Phil clenched the hand into a tight fist. “Damn. Sorry._

_May’s face softened minutely, just around the eyes. “Phil, relax. It’s going to be fine.”_

_From May that was as good as a full-body hug and Phil nodded gratefully. He would have voiced the gratitude as well but at that moment the jet touched down and the landing ramp started to lower, revealing a silhouette Phil knew intimately. Suddenly his mouth was far too dry._

_Before the ramp was even fully down the shadow that was Clint swung out over the side and flipped down to the floor, landing showily the way he liked to when he was both making an impression and showing off a little. It was endearing and intimidating at the same time and Phil’s chest tightened at the familiar and adored dichotomy of the man he loved. Straightening, Clint scanned the ranks of agents waiting to greet the landing party until he spotted Phil and sent him a flirty smile. Phil tried to send one back but the muscles in his face wouldn’t quite obey and all he managed was a tiny twitch of the lips, pathetic really, after a parting as long as this last one had been. The smile faded and Clint’s face set into a grim glare as he started to stroll across the landing bay floor, strutting for all the world as if he owned the place. He moved toward Phil like a programmed missile, throwing tight nods here and there to faces he recognised, but never deviating course. Phil jerked in a breath, feeling his knees threatening to buckle under the weight of that stare, and was saved from collapse only at the last minute when Clint snapped sharp a left-turn that brought him face to face and toe to toe with Mack._

_A tense susurration ran through agents in the bay followed by a sudden stillness and heavy silence, all agents watching anxiously as Hawkeye faced up to the man who had taken an axe to his lover’s hand. The silence stretched out and despite knowing Clint as he did and trusting him like he did, Phil’s heart jolted with dread. Mack didn’t deserve that glare. He’d explained to Clint himself exactly why Mack had had to take the drastic action required, so what was Hawkeye doing? Mack began to shuffle awkwardly, clearing his throat and Phil went to step forward to defuse the situation but then, as always, Clint surprised everyone. Hawkeye’s glare melted into Clint’s grin as he suddenly bounced lightly on his toes and shot up to grab the much bigger man by the ears. Pulling Mack’s head down to his level Clint enthusiastically and noisily planted a long, wet, smacking kiss in the very centre of his forehead. Every mouth on the base gasped and fell open, even May’s, and in that new silence Clint’s quiet, heartfelt, “Thank you Mack. So much.” rang shockingly loud._

_Almost as loud as the smack of the second, shorter but no less dramatic kiss._

_Then, leaving Mack and almost everyone else (except Jemma who couldn’t stop giggling) spluttering in his wake, Clint marched over, grabbed Phil by the wrist and dragged him away to his office._

_With the door hastily closed, Phil found himself firmly crowded up against his desk with a very hot Clint plastered to his front, kissing him like the world was ending and running rapid hands all over his body as if in assessing him for more damage. Eventually Clint’s fingers reached the cuff that connected Phil’s prosthetic and he pulled back, to look Phil in the face, eyes dark and insistent,_

_“Show me.”_

_Phil was still panting from the adrenaline of Clint’s arrival and the initial onslaught of kissing and he pretended that that was why his hands shook as they went to his buttons. Undoing his jacket and shirt as quickly as he could manage he bit the bullet and shrugged them both down at once to bare himself to Clint’s eyes. For a long moment Clint simply stood, stock still except for his roving eye and then he reached out to take Phil’s fake hand in his own very real ones. Before Phil could protest or react, Clint was kissing it, **him** , moving from fingertip to palm to wrist to forearm and finally pressing his lips carefully over the joint, touching the metal and Phil’s flesh at the same time. Phil struggled to hold back the shudder that took him at both the sensation and the relief, but Clint, of course, caught it. _

_He met Phil’s eyes again and this look was his patented ‘you’re an idiot’ glare, all raised eyebrow and gently shaking head. “You thought I would mind.”_

_“Not exactly,” Phil denied, “but I thought maybe…you’d…because…it’s…it’s…it’s a big…thing…”the sentence trailed off lamely and he dropped his eyes._

_“Hey.” Phil shuddered again, knowing with certainty that he would never forget the softness of Clint’s voice at that moment, or the way his hands moved. “This…” one hand gently circled the prosthetic cuff, “happened so that this” the other stroked Phil’s cheek, “could come back to me. And as long as that keeps happening, as long as you keep coming back, I don’t care how many pieces you have to leave along the way. Understand me? I’m not saying you should make a habit of it, god, no, please don’t, but in the long run, I don’t care. Just come home. Simple. I love you, come home. You got it?”_

_Nodding, dizzy with gratitude and the sheer magnitude of what he was being given Phil leant deep into Clint’s hold until their foreheads were tight together. “I got it.”_

_“Good. Remember it.” Phil had thought Clint’s tone of voice had been memorable before but the one accompanying the sly grin that slid onto his face as he dropped his gaze sideways and back to the new hand would be seared into Phil’s brain forever. “It’s been too long love,” he growled, “and it seems a real shame to be dealing with emotional fallout when we could be kissing. Why not take me to the couch and show me exactly what this baby can do?”_

_How could be possibly refuse? Naturally, happily, exuberantly and lengthily, Phil did exactly as he was asked._

>>===>>

And that had seemed to be the end of it.

Except, Phil hadn’t counted on exactly how enthusiastic Clint would turn out to be about the possibilities of the prosthetic technology. He maybe should have guessed, given Clint’s obsession with putty arrows, electric arrows and even, for goodness sake, boomerang arrows, but with the hand his gadget hunger had reached a frightening new level. And once he’d found out exactly how much Fitz enjoyed geeking out about the things Phil’s hand could be equipped with the two of them had been absolutely incorrigible. Phil lost count of how many times in those first days he’d found the pair hogging the holotables and throwing out ideas for things that could be included in his false fingers. Tasers, lasers, lockpicks, syringes, mini-drones, radio emitters, sleep darts, he’d vetoed them all. Phil was fairly sure that if Clint and Fitz had had their way he would have ended up with a kind of high-tech, hand-shaped, Swiss Army knife that definitely would have been invaluable in many and varied situations but which would also have had the small issue of being almost entirely unliftable. 

And yes, Phil could admit that Clint’s suggestion of installing a shield had been a legitimate brainwave,

_(“Oh, come on Phil, you have to admit it would be cool. The Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. with an actual shield! That’s **hella** cool. That’s wordplay cool. It would be like...like me having **actual hawk’s eyes,** _.”

_“Oh no, I know that look. Do not, and I mean absolutely do not, even **think** about asking Fitz to mess with your eyes. If it keeps the pair of you out of trouble I will ask him about a shield tomorrow but **nothing else.** Now stop talking and come back to bed before you give me an apoplexy. You and your ideas.”_

_“You love me and my ideas.”_

_“God help me, I really do. Now, sleep”)_

but he couldn’t think of a single occasion where the little poky thing for getting stones out of horses’ hooves would be useful. Cute as it had been, eventually he’d had to send Clint back to Avenging a day or so early just to calm the frenzy of memos and sketches flying back and forth. And while he suspected Clint and Fitz had never stopped their conspiracy completely it was a relief not to worry about electrocuting himself every time he forgot and absently bit at a fingernail.

It was therefore perhaps ironic that this particular evening Phil was actually relying heavily on Clint’s love of gadgets to help make his plan a success. Which of course it would be. It had to be. He couldn’t imagine the alternative.

Phil took a steadying breath and opened the apartment door.

>>===>>

“Hello?” he called, putting his bags down in the hallway, “I’m home!”

“Cooking!” The reply came from the kitchen and Phil wandered through, grinning widely at the sight that greeted him. Their apartment, which was a good few steps up from Clint’s wreck in Bed-Stuy but nowhere near the luxury they’d been offered at the Tower, had huge windows round an open-plan living space and while the view was amazing it wasn’t the first time Phil found himself feeling glad that he’d sprung to have them fitted with one-way glass. Because the sight of Clint Barton simultaneously handling three different pans and gleefully swinging his hips to the poppy beat of some cheesy eighties song on the radio, all while wearing nothing but black boxers and his favourite, purple, ‘Archers Do It Accurately’ apron (naturally a gift from Kate)… Well. That view really should be reserved only for Phil.

“Smells gorgeous love,” he said, coming up behind Clint, sliding his hands under the apron to hug across Clint’s firm stomach then snugging up against his back, “And you look gorgeous. Maybe I’ll stay late at the office more often if I get a naked chef when I get home.” He pressed a kiss to the side of Clint’s neck and smiled at the shudder that went through him, the goosebumps that rippled down his forearms.

“Mmmmmm,” Clint leaned back in Phil’s hold and arched his neck to claim a proper kiss, “How’s about you don’t? S.H.I.E.L.D. gets enough of our time as it is and I am quite happy to get naked anytime you ask…”

Phil laughed appreciatively. “Noted. But not until you’ve finished dinner please. We don’t need another hot oil incident today.”

“Honey,” Clint's grin was salacious as he went after another kiss, “the only hot oil I have in mind for tonight is already warming in the bedroom.” Phil raised an eyebrow and the grin turned to chuckles, “Okay, okay, that wasn’t actually true. But honestly Phil, I couldn’t miss that opening. Speaking of which…”

“Enough!” Phil squeezed Clint hard enough to make him squeak and cut off the inevitable innuendo, leaving him gasping and giggling at the same time, “Before we die from hunger and a surfeit of puns, should I set the table?”

“Go on then.” Clint waved him away smiling and turned back to his pans, “It’s not my fault you don’t appreciate my wit and wisdom. This’ll be done in five minutes.”

Phil squeezed Clint once more just for the sheer fun of hearing that squeak again and headed for the cupboard to snag a couple of wine glasses. 

“So, how was your day? What did Kate think to those new trick arrows you and Tony built?”

“Well,” Clint turned off the stove and started scooping the dinner out onto plates, “I’m not saying that she loved them, but I am pretty sure that she’ll come around. I mean, confetti arrows, seriously, they disrupt trackers _and_ they look totally cool! I don’t know what she was moaning about.” Picking up the plates he turned towards the table, “I mean, yeah, Tony needs to tweak them so they don’t explode as soon as you nock them but that’s, like, a pretty minor issue. I’m sure Kate’ll get the glitter out of her shirt eventually and okay, the hair might take a bit longer but I personally thought it looked good on her…hey!”

Phil startled up from laying out cutlery, his heart starting to race as Clint put the plates down sharply, “What?”

“You’re wearing a new hand!”

Phil spread put the hand in question out in front of him, fingers spread. It looked identical to the one he’d left with that morning. “How can you tell?”

Clint smirked. “Because,” he said, moving closer, “this one doesn’t have that little scar by the thumb. You know, from that time in your office when May was next door and you were trying so hard to be quiet when I did that thing you like with my fingers that you bit right through…”

“Alright, I remember,” Phil said, flushing a little at the memory (it had been very hard to be quiet), “you saw that from over there? It was tiny!”

“Hawkeye.” Clint shrugged. “Come on Phil…don’t hold out on me!” He took the hand between both of his own and turned it back and forth as if that would make it give up its secrets. He was grinning like a kid at Christmas. “What does it do this time?”

Phil’s heart leapt from racing to galloping and he tried to hold back the stomach pterodactyls threatening to fly their way up out of his throat. This was not the right moment. This was not how he had planned to do this, he’d been planning to wait until after dinner, maybe light some candles, sit by the windows, enjoy the view of the city at night. He’d expected Clint to be wearing more clothes and for him not to feel like he was about to dissolve into a puddle of nervous sweat, this was not what he’d planned, this was not exactly romantic, this was hardly the stuff of memories, this was...this was…

“Phil?” Clint was looking at him worriedly, a frown starting to crinkle his forehead, apron adorably askew. His concern shook Phil out of his spiral and warmed him to the core.

Maybe this would do after all. 

Phil allowed himself one deep breath and then put out his hand again.

“What it does…” he triggered the electronics, “is this.” As he spoke the skin at the base of his third finger split and reformed. A ring of metal rose through the gap and expanded until it finally sat tight around the finger itself, a raised band of polished silver, carefully patterned with a design of repeating chevrons. He held it out for Clint’s inspection.

“Cool.” Clint stroked it with a finger tip. “What does it do? No, hang on, don’t tell me. It’s a taser?” he guessed. Phil shook his head ‘no’, “No? Okay…an icer? Body scanner? Sonic emitter? Does it deliver an EMP? No?” Phil still shook his head. “Okay babe, I give up. You tell me.”

Phil’s mouth was dry, his one human palm was not. “It’s just a ring.”

“Oh.” Clint’s frown came back and Phil watched him think for a few moments before he suddenly brightened. “Oh! It’s for _cover_ ,” he said, obviously pleased with his conclusions, “for your _aliases_.”

“Well, I suppose it could be for that.” Phil couldn’t suppress the tiny tremble in his voice, wobbling in time with his pounding heart, “But I was really hoping that its main job would actually just be to partner with this one.” 

He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a small leather box, opening it to reveal another, this time brushed silver, ring. Watching Clint, who stood staring in slack-jawed silence, he took it from the box and held it out on his palm in offering. Every single one of his carefully prepared words deserted him, except the question he really wanted to ask. “Marry me?”

Clint’s eyes opened impossibly wider and then, _“Ohmyfuckinggodyes!”_ the reply whooshed out of him in one gabbled breath. Phil grinned as Clint snatched the ring from his palm and rammed it onto his own finger, then found that his mouth had far more interesting things to do as Clint surged forward to claim it in a hot, frantic, messy kiss that was all tongue, teeth, adrenaline and sheer perfection. Pulling back to snatch a breath Phil gasped shakily, “I’m pretty sure putting the ring on was my job.”

“Sorry,” Clint panted, “Next time. Not taking it off now.” He was already pulling Phil’s mouth back to his and Phil, meeting him eagerly, just had time to mumble,

“Didn’t ask you to. Never ask you to.” before he was engulfed again.

Eventually, Clint broke away and pressed his forehead against Phil’s. Even in that extreme close-up Phil could see how widely he was grinning.

“We’re getting married.” Clint sounded drunk, incredulous.

Phil’s own grin matched Clint’s and while his voice was still trembling, this time it was with sheer glee. “Yes we are.”

“Married!”

“Married. Soon as possible.”

Clint pulled back to stare him in the eyes. “God, I fucking love you Phil. You know that?”

“I absolutely do.” His hands were wound round Clint and he squeezed him tight, pure happiness bubbling through his chest. “And I fucking love you too.”

“Language, Agent Coulson!” Clint reprimanded him, laughing. He pulled up Phil’s left hand and lined it up next to his own so that their rings were close together. “Damn. I think this is the best thing that your hand has ever done.”

“Really?” Phil raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “Because there is that that thing with you on your back that you’ve always seemed to be fond of, the one with the lube where I rub…”

Clint’s cheeks pinked, his eyes darkened. “You know full well that you do that with your right hand. But I guess we could test it. If you insist on a direct comparison.”

“You know what, fiancé?” Phil’s heart leapt at finally being able to say the title, “I totally do.” 

He turned his hand so that his fingers entwined with Clint’s and, leaving the food to cool just as quickly as they themselves were heating up, he dragged him to the bedroom.

>>===>>

A pleasingly long and interesting time later, they lay tangled together on rumpled sheets, both sweaty, sticky, out of breath and smiling like idiots. Phil pulled Clint tight, needing to feel him close and warm, to hold him even as drowsiness began to smooth out the edges of his vision. Clint hummed happily and reached for Phil’s hand. “Babe,” he yawned, “that was completely amazing. But this,” he tapped Phil’s ring finger then hugged it hard to his chest, “this is even better.” 

Phil, managed to stop smiling for just long enough to press a kiss behind Clint’s ear, “I’m glad you like it.”

“I do.” Clint wriggled round to face him, “Only, how come yours is shiny and mine isn’t? I wouldn’t have scratched it.”

“Yes you absolutely would have,” Phil laughed, “and you’re meant to. That’s the whole point love, you wear it, live in it and let it get bumped and marked up by life and love it anyway. Just like us I suppose. But, to answer your question Agent Barton, yours isn’t shiny because I thought that might be more appropriate for a marksman who needs to hide in the field.”

“Aww, sir,” Clint stretched up for a lingering kiss. “You’re a big softy _and_ you think of everything. No wonder I want to keep you.”

“The feeling is entirely mutual.” Phil assured him, delivering a kiss of his own. Stretched out against him, Clint was deliciously soft and pliant and drowsiness be damned, it wasn’t every day a man got engaged. He could stay awake for a little longer.

>>===>>

The bedside clock read just past ten when Phil was woken by the sound of his phone buzzing away in his discarded jacket. He struggled up out of sleep, meaning to answer it, but Clint had beaten him to it. 

“Phil’s phone.”

Phil listened to the whispered conversation with half an ear.

“Oh, hey Fitz….No, he’s asleep…no, that’s ok” Clint’s voice was low and fond, filling Phil’s limbs with heavy syrup. “Yeah, I saw the new hand….Yes, he showed me what it does… Oh, come on Fitz, I thought you two were meant to be geniuses? ‘Yes’ of course!” A high-pitched squeal sounded over the line and Clint laughed softly, “Tell Jemma thank you, we love her too and we’ll see her soon.” There was a long pause and Clint’s voice grew more animated. “Well _I_ said that! I know, that would be totally cool. Or an icer, that would work too…Both? Fitz, you _are_ a genius. We’ll talk about it next week, okay?...yeah, I’ll see what I can do…Awesome….See you then. Thanks again Fitz… Night, man.” Clint hung up and Phil drifted, listening to the soft sounds of him silencing the phone and padding back across the room.

The bed rocked when Clint shuffled back in behind him and he sighed contentedly, snuggling down into being the little spoon as Clint’s arms folded him up. Sleepily they found each other’s hands, their new rings clicking gently together, reminding Phil how damn lucky he was. 

Perhaps ordinarily he should have been groaning in exasperation at the gadget conspiracy clearly developing but right now it simply didn’t seem important enough to summon the energy. Yes, it appeared that unless he wanted to go about his day tasering people or accidentally icing every leftie he shook hands with he was probably going to have to keep a very cautious eye on this new hand _and_ on his new fiancé, but so what? For this, for Clint Barton, a little caution was a tiny price to pay.

After everything they’d been through, together and apart, they’d made it so amazingly, unimaginably far and Phil couldn’t remember ever feeling this completely happy. 

Hawkeye and Agent, Barton and Coulson, Clint and Phil were getting _married_. They were going to be _husbands_.

Phil was still smiling when sleep reclaimed him.


End file.
